you cant run just shocks. you will have to put a coil spring somewhere to since the spring is what actually holds up the car. the shock just controls spring movement then. a strut is both of those combined in one unit.

You could do coilovers. But they are also an integrated unit. Honestly, you really can't just use shocks on our suspensions. They weren't designed for it, and really there isn't a reason you would want to swap over.